Juliet
by Inudaughter Returns
Summary: Helga runs away to Arnold on his fifteenth birthday. An event referenced in 'Invisible Swan'. I wrote this as a gift to my readers who wanted something a little spicier. Rated M for minor adult themes.
**This story is a gift to readers who were expecting something spicier in Arnold Goes Bad. I hope this makes up for it. It is an event referenced in my story, "Invisible Swan'. Appropriately Rated M, which means it is a little censored but contains minor adult themes. I don't dare anger the mods, so my apologies for cutting out a paragraph!**

Arnold waited on a street corner for a bus as he always did. He was seldom at home. As seldom as he could make it, anyway. He was fifteen now. A birthday card from some classmate he hardly knew was stuffed in his back pocket and the fifty cents change leftover from the twenty his parents had gifted him this morning rolled in his wallet. Arnold had bought a cd with it, a cover of his favorite jazz artist.

A drizzling rain crept slowly against the heavens, engulfing the little ray of sunshine left on Arnold's already desolate sky. Today should have been a great day for him, but it wasn't. He hadn't even been able to get hold of Gerald on the phone to have his best friend wish him a happy birthday. Eyes fixed on the murky, brown, and gray-lumped sky as the bits of orange-hued light from a fading sunset struggled not to be smoothed by the sea of overwhelming clouds; Arnold freed his earphones from his ears to nest them gently around his neck. He knew he should be getting home soon. His parents would be worried and he, punished. But Arnold could not help but feel like he was like that sky filled with struggling. His life was a murky sea full of unappealing clouds like these- rich, deep, and aggressive. The bulging pillows spilled themselves across the sky with disorder, rolling and roiling to blot out the sun. His light- the love of his family, friends, and love back in Hillwood- had become a distinct halo on the edge of a sky soon to be swallowed up by black.

Enthused by the moment, Arnold paid no mind to the bus. With a gasp and a squeal, it rolled up, opened its door, and paused for a brief few moments. But as Arnold continued to stare at the sky, fisted hands jammed into his pockets, the bus driver of a green and gray bus grunted, slammed the door, and drove away.

Arnold had missed his bus. The scant one inch of rain that had spattered the ground left a few drops on his pants as the bus drove away. But the cloud sheet continued to march overhead, not falling down to some great resolution, but rather off to some distant place. Arnold watched it go. The sky became the pure black of a tranquil night again, illuminated by streetlights and the returning stars.

Arnold expected his phone to go off any moment. He'd probably be sent to bed without any dinner for this stunt, so he counted the bills in his wallet. He might as well buy a coffee and donut before he faced the reaper. But for a few moments more he might enjoy the lamplight. Its soft glow was the comfort of a lighthouse on an uneasy shore.

"One, two, three, four, five!" Arnold counted out methodically in his head, then shut his wallet again. In practice, it was always a bad idea to count your wallet in public, especially at night. It was too informative to thieves, but with caution, like with many things, Arnold had decided not to care so much as he used to. His empty heart had blanked out a lot of his good. Nowadays, it soaked in gritty like a seed in need of drink for within the despair of others lay a cure for his own broken heart.

It had been three years now. Three full years since his parents had pulled him away from Hillwood. Arnold had just been getting over his Grandma Pookie's death by natural causes when they decided that Arnold was being too liberal around women. Namely, Helga. At twelve, the two had been found cozying up together and he had failed to convince them he and she had not been up to anything indecent. Especially when he had not been able to deny that he was in love with Helga. Because he was. With all his heart.

Arnold had written. His sweetheart had never written back, though, and Arnold presumed it was all because she now hated his parents. She hated him and she had moved on. Arnold sighed. He leant heavily against the lamppost. He held onto it and concentrated on just breathing. The memories spun so unpleasantly in his head that he had to quiet the despair somehow. So he reconnected the earphones to his ears once again and pressed play.

'I should really go get that coffee now,' Arnold told himself He almost moved, but a gray and red bus came splashing through the dim light. Arnold's vision was fixed on that bus. It was a bus that joined major cities. If only he had forty-five bucks cash or a ticket, he could take that bus and run away. Far away. Maybe Gerald could hide him in Hillwood and he wouldn't have to deal with his parents anymore.

It wasn't as though Arnold didn't love his parents. It wasn't as though they didn't love Arnold, in a way. But like a happy marriage on the spur of the moment where none of the party involved actually got to know one another first, their relationship as bonded parents and son had quickly disintegrated. Their relationship was one of mistrust. Misunderstandings clouded their love. Differences in opinions, morals, and even daily habits abounded. Miles and Stella Shortman were good people. But to Arnold it was as if he had been handed over to an adoptive family in a foreign nation. They just did not speak his language. But Hillwood had understood. Hillwood- his home, his life, his family, and friends there had been precious to him. And Helga.

Arnold lay a hand over his eyes. Two tears had leaked out the sides of his squenched lids. Just when she and he had come to understand and reciprocate their love for one another they had lost all that. Since then, Arnold had just not been the same. He had sealed himself off from other people. He could not let his classmates now get close. Or he'd feel the pain of loss all over again when they, too, became a memory.

It was not like Arnold had much time for friends, anyway. He had homework. His parents wanted him to get into a good college and he wanted to go to get away from them. So he studied hard every hour he had off if he wasn't off wandering downtown. Like tonight.

The bus stopped. Arnold stared at its interior, his fists jammed in his pockets again. If only he could sneak aboard somehow, tonight, and leave all these clouds behind him. But he knew it'd be impossible. He'd be a teenage runaway. The busdriver would rat him out and his parents would drag him back. Arnold made up his mind to turn and leave when a blur came right at him. A pink duffle bag slammed into his chest and its owner collided with him. Arnold fell down onto the pavement of the street. If he hadn't pulled his head up a bit he might have been out cold.

"Ow!" the weight on top of him snapped. "Watch where you are going!" There was something familiar about that voice. Not the sound exactly because it was a young woman's. But the heat and bite of it. Like a tiger's.

"Helga…" Arnold mumbled under his breath remembering who it reminded him off. He pushed the dufflebag off himself, irritated at whomever had collided into him in such a memory-invoking way when he stopped. Removing the dufflebag had revealed golden locks. And a face there was no mistaking. Those lips. That nose. The earlobes that curled just so. It was her. It was…

"Helga?!" Arnold shouted. He sat up so quickly she had no time to slide off him to stand. Instead, Helga was seated on his lap as he curled a hand around her back. With one hand, Arnold pulled the earphones off his head again and let them dangle as he stared. He wrapped his second hand around the small of Helga's back to join the first.

"Whaa? What are you getting all cozy for, Football-Head?" Helga protested. But she made no effort to free herself from Arnold's hold. Instead she sank into it, and lifted her hands to lay them on either side of Arnold's shoulders.

"Helga? What are you doing here?" asked Arnold resisting the urge to kiss those soft lips. He wanted an answer first. It had been years with no contact between them. He startled as Helga lay her disheveled head against Arnold's shoulder and began to cry. The act of crying was so unlike her.

"Oh, Arnold!" Helga sobbed a few times against her will before she sniffled her tears away. "I just couldn't help it. I can't stand being there any more. My parents are getting a divorce. I needed you," Helga ended. She lifted a hand and lay it on Arnold's cheek as she gazed into Arnold's eyes, a small smile ghosting the sides of her lips. That answer was all Arnold needed.

Arnold's cell phone rang. It was his parents hunting for him angrily. But Arnold tightened his hold on Helga with one hand. With the other, he pulled out his phone and turned it off. Then, freeing both hands for a few seconds, he freed the back cover yanked out certain portions. The phone was no longer a phone. It was a puzzle of loose pieces. Arnold settled both hands around Helga's waist again as her arms draped against his back. They belonged there.

"What do you say we get out of here?" Arnold asked his one true love with a smile.

Arnold had dreamt of Helga for years. It seemed she had too, for as soon as they both stood, palm in palm, her lips met his in an angry crash. Two fierce passions battled for dominance, then tongues, then breath, until both of them were panting. Like a diver coming up for air, they paused, chests heaving. Step by step they backed away from eyes on the street into an alleyway. Arnold pressed Helga against the red brick corner of a building, grinding his hips into hers as she pressed tightly against him. She wove her kisses with his like a tapestry. The kisses became a musical rhythm. Then Helga stopped and pressed the fingertips of her hand against Arnold's chest.

"Not here. Not now," she said listening to his heart beat.

"Somewhere else?" Arnold suggested not loosening his grip around her shoulders. Helga nodded her head against his chest and Arnold felt it move.

"Then I know where," he said tightening his grip.

Their parents would be furious. His especially. But right now, he could not give a damn. It was revenge. Revenge of them thinking poorly of him. Revenge for keeping him separated from her. But it was so much more than just revenge.

It was need. Arnold drunk in Helga like the air. He had longed for this night and her forever. He had feared he would never see her again. It was impossible. Impossible that she was here and impossible that he was not inside her as he had dreamed for years. She was his one and only true love. He could not afford to lose her again. Not even for one moment.

Mostly it was just bums who haunted the city park at this hour. But it was a decently private place to go. Arnold pressed past the children's jungle gym with Helga's hand clenched tightly in his. Lightly, they danced across the moon bright, glowing, play sands, then dove into the trees. Arnold dragged Helga, guiding her forcefully, for several minutes more. They crossed a small footbridge and a sign of the brook. Palouse.

"Here," said Arnold turning off the gravel path of the park trail. They weaved through bushes and trees instead to a hidden bank along the brook. The ground was dry there and loose with sand.

"My hiding spot," Arnold said with a small smile before he crouched to the ground, his hand still intertwined with Helga's. She crouched with him and when his hands cupped her shoulders, she lay down. Arnold lowered himself down next to her.

"Some hotel," Helga scoffed. But she locked her lips with Arnold's in a kiss hungrily enough.

"What do you want? All I expected to need was bus fare," Arnold combated. But his lips carried most of the argument and Helga grunted, melting under them. She fisted her hands behind Arnold's back and tried to draw him tighter as they lay on the ground, face-to-face.

"Arnold," she said panting grinding herself against his waist and throwing a leg over his hip. "No more teasing. I need…"

"I know," said Arnold. He sat up and gathered Helga into his arms. Then, leaning her back supporting her head as if in dance, he lowered his lips to Helga's neck. He lay two feathery kisses along it, then five more, than ten. His own breath had become hot and ragged.

"Arnold…" said Helga sitting up and reaching for his zipper. It was the sweetest moan he had ever heard. "I want you to take me all the way…"

Their lovemaking that night was not awkward. It was painful, either. It was flawless. Both of them had been rehearsing for this night in their dreams and in their beds for years. When it was over, Helga sobbed for joy. The pain of separation the two had suffered for so many years was gone with their virginities.

"I love you, Helga," Arnold muttered. Even if it was the first time saying it out loud to her, he had said it a thousand times. It rolled off the tip of his tongue, doubtless.

"I know," said Helga snuggling her head into the crook of his shoulder. "Believe me, Arnold, I know. I love you too, Romeo."

"Juliet," Arnold called drawing her closer.


End file.
